A campaign without crap? We dare to hope.

Have you noticed? Even though the Presidential candidates are attacking each other, we haven't seen real dirt yet. Just a little soot around the edges. Only the talk radio side show is truly outrageous, and they're attacking one of their own, John McCain, who's bulletproof. They're realizing it, too. I even heard Michael Savage backing off the other day, 24 hours after he raved that McCain was "in Kennedy's pocket," which was, now that I think about it, a fairly mild epithet for Savage, when you separate it from his ferocious style.

I hear Karl Rove's now on Fox News's payroll, which is as marginalized as you can get. Somehow I don't think he'll be running the Republican nominee's campaign this year. Maybe even he knows another Swift Boat-style operation won't work this year. After eight years of modern Republican rule, we're far from clueless. Even the believers know better than to believe what these guys say. The more the red-faced wingnut screamers attack McCain, the more Republican voters know he's exactly what the party needs in 2008.

So, you think the primary campaigns are rough? The finals will be rougher. But I think the people are saying, and the parties are hearing, Don't even think about putting out stupid, nasty crap. Not this year.